


Unexpected Arrangements

by aurilly



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, Sharing a Room, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-04-21
Updated: 2010-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which instead of getting separated from the group and accused of being a Hostile, etc., Sayid is integrated into the Dharma Initiative along with Jack, Kate, and Hurley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dinner was technically over, but the four of them remained seated at a corner table in the mess hall, whispering conspiratorially yet trying their best to look like they'd only just met. In many ways, Sayid felt as though they _had_ only just met. So much had happened, and so much had separated them since the last time they'd been here together, now years before… or from now…

This was going to take some getting used to.

Except for Hurley (thank goodness for Hurley), they'd all become different people since their last stay on the island. Sayid had once understood Jack and how to deal with him, but the person now sitting across from him was almost a stranger. Jack's drive and self-assurance were extinguished; the leader had become a believing follower, but of what? And then there was Kate, who had drifted around all day looking just as lost and purposeless as Sayid felt. A ghost of her ready-for-anything former self, Kate had barely spoken two words all day.

Then there were those who had never left. Sayid didn't yet know what to make of any of them: English-speaking Jin, mechanic Juliet, security guard Miles, and _Jim LaFleur_. The world had indeed gone topsy-turvy.

Sayid knew he was pondering the changes in everyone else as a way of avoiding having to confront the changes in himself. Was he so different from the new Jack?

Hurley was the only one able to diffuse the lethargy enough to promote conversation.

"Do you think they did it on purpose?" he asked, interrupting Sayid's reverie.

"Think who did what?" There he was again, this new and confused Jack. Yes, Sawyer had told them to act 'doped up' from the drugs on the submarine, but Jack didn't seem to be pretending. A whispered query to Kate earlier in the day had assured Sayid that Jack was indeed sober again, so the change remained unexplained.

"Sawyer and Juliet. Making me a chef," Hurley explained.

"I don't think Sawyer had anything to do with the job assignments. I think it was whatever he and Juliet could come up with on short notice," Jack said.

"I disagree," Sayid countered, relieved to find himself capable of reasoning an opinion about _something_ in this new battleground. "Why else would I have been assigned to The Flame, if not for Sawyer remembering my expertise with communications devices?"

Jack frowned; it was the first time Sayid had seen him react to almost anything since they'd been thrown together in the days before their return. "Really? You got a communications job?"

"What job did you get, dude?" Hurley asked after Sayid nodded.

Jack stabbed at his overcooked green beans, avoiding eye contact. "Workman," he mumbled.

There was a pause as everyone digested the possible slight, and then Hurley diffused it by remembering, "Well, Juliet's a mechanic here, and she was a doctor, too. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, after all."

"Maybe." Jack did not seem reassured.

"If only we could find a way to speak privately with our friends, we should soon find out how they managed to integrate us. But it seems we will have to wait until they come to us," Sayid mused.

"They seem pretty busy," Hurley said, and they all retreated into themselves once again.

Sayid glanced at Kate. She'd spent the entire conversation staring off into the middle distance. He was worried about her---more so than the others.

Someone new entered the slowly emptying room. It was Phil, the man who had almost seen through the ruse before Juliet came in with new forms for Kate and Sayid. He was headed straight for them.

"Hi," he greeted with false brightness.

"Hey there. Everything alright?" Jack greeted.

Phil dropped the mask and became serious, nervously wrinkling the corner of the paper he was holding. "Actually, no. We've run into a sort of a problem and I wanted to talk to you four about it."

"What's up?" Hurley asked. This was their first conversation with any of the Dharma people since the registration, and Sayid prayed that Hurley would not say anything to give them away.

"Well, due to some disorganization on the mainland, we only really expected two of you." He pointed to Jack and Hurley. "And we definitely weren't expecting another woman. Problem is with the housing. We only have a one-bedroom house for a couple and then a two-bedroom. So the only configuration I can think of to make you feel comfortable, Ms. Austen, would be to put you with one of the men in the two-bedroom, and then the other two men in the one-bedroom."

"You mean like two dudes sharing a bed?" Hurley asked incredulously.

"Yes." Phil shifted uncomfortably, wrinkling his paper ever more furiously. "So, you see the problem. I noticed that you four seem to have already become friends. So, I was hoping…"

"If two of us don't mind sleeping together," Jack finished bluntly.

"In a nutshell." Phil looked around hopefully.

Sayid tried not to chuckle at this high school scenario, so similar to some of the ones he remembered from their original sojourn on the island. All that remained was to involve Sawyer and Juliet. Sayid caught Hurley glancing between Jack and Sayid, as if weighing his options, or hoping that they were looking at each other. But Jack was staring at Kate. Sayid sighed, resigning himself to the idea of sharing a house, if not a bed with Hurley. He had distinct memories of the man's snores at night and unwelcome chatter in the morning.

However, just as Jack opened his mouth to speak, Kate interjected, "Or I could share the one-bedroom house with one of the guys, right?" It was the first thing she had said all evening.

At this, Jack grinned hopefully, and Phil looked relieved not to have had to say it. "Yes, that's another way to do it. I didn't want to suggest it myself, but of course, it would only be temporarily until we figure something else out. I promise that you'd---"

"I'll room with Sayid, if it's alright with him. That way Jack and Hurley can have their own rooms," Kate interrupted, her eyes just as unreadable as they'd been all day. Turning to Sayid, she added, "What do you say?"

Sayid was startled, but then, remembering the scene on the pier in LA, he thought he understood. Sayid didn't imagine that her suggestion had anything to do with him in particular. It had everything to do with wanting to distance herself from her former (unhealthy, in Sayid's opinion) entanglements. He was proud of her.

Sayid spent a second considering the proposition. In any other case, he would have balked at the idea. The only woman with whom he had ever cohabitated was Nadia, and the memory of their life together was still something he was terrified of sullying and losing. Despite his encounters since Nadia's death, Sayid had drawn a line between sex and anything more serious. But this wasn't about sex and it wasn't a relationship. This was an innocent gesture of trust and friendship that was simultaneously the least romantic and most flattering offer Sayid had ever received.

So, to Jack's badly hidden dismay, Sayid calmly stated, "I would be honored."

Kate winked at Sayid, a faint glimmer of the old spark _finally_ showing. "We only just met, but I have a hunch that he's a perfect gentleman."

"Really?" Phil and Hurley asked in unison, the former surprised that the issue had been so easily resolved between these apparent strangers, and the latter shocked that Kate hadn't chosen Jack.

"Yeah, well, I guess it _is_ the seventies," Hurley mused.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Phil asked, confused.

"Oh! Oops. I mean, uh… modern times? Like, people not minding shacking up?" Hurley covered up.

They all flinched, but it was enough to appease Phil. "Oh. Right. Definitely. Well, that's settled then. You two," he said, pointing at Jack and Hurley, "have house number eight. And you two have house number fifteen. I'll get someone to transport your luggage to your new houses."

"Luggage?" Jack asked, panicked in addition to crestfallen. They had no luggage. The only carry-on that had flashed with them was Hurley's mysterious guitar case.

Trying to salvage the situation, Sayid faked uncertainty as he said, "I think… what was his name?... Jin? Yes, Jin, has our bags. If you tell us where to find him, we can ask him ourselves. We don't want to trouble you."

"Great. Thanks. Judging from how accommodating you all are, I have a feeling you'll be great additions to our community here. You should find Jin in the security station." And with that, he left them alone again.

Ignoring the imminent line of flustered questioning they could tell was about to erupt from Jack, Kate rose regally from her seat. Her eyes were still tired, but her mouth almost smiled as she held her hand out to Sayid. "So, roomie, how about we go check out our new digs?"

There wasn't anything further to stay for other than more stilted conversation hiding myriad motives, so Sayid took her hand and kissed it with an equal amount of faux-majesty. "An excellent plan," he said, and then added to the others, "We'll see you two in the morning."

As he and Kate strode away, Sayid heard Hurley mutter, "Woah. Didn't see that one coming."


	2. Chapter 2

Kate sat on the couch with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, feeling as numb as she had all day. It was the same kind of couch (only newer) that she remembered sitting on that day that Claire had taught her how to burp Aaron, back before she’d ever dreamed of taking him in, much less giving him up.

She shook her head, trying not to think about it. According to Jin’s quickly whispered updates, there had been no sign of the Ajira flight, and three years of searching the island had failed to locate Claire. Claire wasn’t here, or rather, _now_. Kate had given up everything in order to come back for absolutely nothing, and now she was stuck here for the foreseeable future… past… whatever.

Kate hadn’t spent much time at the barracks the first time. There had been that one night when she’d been handcuffed to a pool table. Hardly a pleasant memory. Then there was that night with Sawyer. Pleasant or not---in hindsight, Kate wasn’t sure---it probably wasn’t the best memory to dwell on right now. She wasn’t even sure which house it had been anymore; they all looked alike.

Now that she thought about it, the only person to have spent as little time at the barracks as herself was Sayid, who, after unpacking the few clothes Jin had been able to gather for them into the dresser drawers, was now busy pottering around their new house, checking under the furniture and in all the cupboards, as though he expected to find killers or something behind the cans of Dharma food their place had come stocked with. Every so often, he let out an “Ah _ha_!” or a “Yes, of course” that was directed at no one.

Even through her haze, Kate found it weirdly cute. But then again, even though she would never in a million years tell him so, Kate had always found Sayid weirdly cute. It was part of why she’d wanted to bunk with him.

It had been a split-second decision. The last thing Kate wanted was to end up in the same place she’d started and as the same person she’d been the last time. Letting Jack live with her again would have been the first step in falling into her old rut, both with him and with herself. Kate was done with their drama; she just hadn’t fully realized it until the housing thing had come up.

As she watched Sayid stalk purposefully yet pointlessly around their new house, Kate remembered that there had never been any drama with Sayid. He’d always been there when she’d needed him, and left her alone when she didn’t. She’d always tried to do the same for him.

“Would you like a glass of water?” she heard him ask from the kitchen.

“Got anything stronger?” she called back.

She’d mostly been joking, but a minute later, Sayid came into the living room and placed two glasses of wine on the coffee table before slumping into the couch beside her.

“It was labeled Merlot. I couldn’t find any information about the vintage, though,” he unapologetically informed her.

Kate shrugged as she took her first sip. “It’ll do the job.”

They sat together, staring at the wall in front of them as they sipped their surprisingly decent wine. The open window let in the sound of children laughing as they walked by the house, but no breeze. There had never been a breeze this far inland, she remembered.

Next to her, Sayid silently sweated through his hideous purple shirt. Kate wondered why he wasn’t stripping down to the happily familiar black wife-beater she could see peeking out underneath. She wondered if it was because of some misguided and foreign sense of decency or chivalry or something. For Sayid, good manners for beach camp life might be different from manners in a house. Who knew? It was funny how, after years of considering him a good friend, she had almost no idea what he was like in a normal situation. She’d spent most of his year in LA under house arrest, and by the time she was free, Nadia was dead and Sayid had disappeared. He’d sent her a few postcards, written in an uncharacteristically jaunty style that she knew was a code. Something about keeping them safe. She’d never known the details and it sounded shady, but she trusted him to know what he was doing. However, given his demeanor on the dock and ever since, perhaps she should have paid more attention.

“Aren’t you hot?” she asked.

Sayid didn’t even move his head as he replied, “Yes, I am.”

_All right, then._ Sayid had never been what Kate called ‘fun’, but…

“So, what was with you and that woman on the plane? It looked like she had you handcuffed,” Kate asked.

Sayid stared into his almost-empty glass. “She said she worked for the family of a man I killed during the time when I was working for Ben. She said she was extraditing me to Guam for a trial, but I’m starting to wonder if she knew where we were really going. We are meant to be here, but why?”

Well, _this_ was a downer. Kate had counted on Sayid to be her rock, just as he had been before. It seemed like she was going to have to rally herself out of her own funk to snap him out of his.

She decided to try again. “Have you got a plan yet?” she asked, as brightly as she could.

He finally turned to face her, with one eyebrow cocked in a sad kind of befuddlement. “Excuse me?”

“A plan for getting out of here. You always have one.”

“Sadly, I must disappoint you. I have no plan, for anything. Last time, I thought we were simply trying to escape from a relatively normal island, smoke monster aside. But now? It has become clear that we are in no ordinary place. Time travel is, as you can probably imagine, beyond my purview. We are not meant to leave. Perhaps we were never meant to leave.”

Kate had had enough of this despair. “What’s happened to you, Sayid?” she finally exploded.

He said nothing, and she stood up, frustrated. “I’m going to get ready for bed. Maybe tomorrow you’ll feel more with it,” she snapped, knowing full well that she’d been just as dead and useless all day. She headed for the bathroom, where she’d seen Sayid put the two toothbrushes from their welcome kit. Everything in this place had a Dharma logo, even the toothpaste. She vaguely wondered where all the stuff actually came from. Perhaps it was all Colgate or something and someone had taken the time to replace the logos. She’d only been here for a day, but it seemed like the kind of scary, crazy, cult thing the Dharma Initiative would do.

She was surprised to hear him call after her, “How would you like to do this?”

“Do what?” Kate yelled with her mouth full of toothpaste foam.

“The sleeping arrangements. I can spend the nights out here on the couch if you would prefer.”

Kate rolled her eyes even though he was in the next room. “Oh, please. It’s a big enough bed for both of us.”

With the toothbrush still in her mouth, she went into the bedroom to check out what she could change into. He probably heard her moving around and guessed what she was doing because she heard him say, “It appears that Jin was unable to source us any pajamas.”

He was right. There wasn’t much there. A few tee-shirts for her, some underwear, and a pair of jeans that she could already tell were going to be too big on her. Kate remembered that they were supposed to wear those awful jumpsuits a lot of the time, so they probably didn’t need much in the way of day-clothes. “Can I borrow a pair of your boxers?” she called, still looking into the other drawer.

“Of course.”

Kate grabbed a striped pair and one of her tee-shirts and lay them on the bed before going back to wash her mouth out. When she’d finished, she looked up from the sink to find Sayid standing there in nothing but the dark blue boxers she’d spied peeping above his waistband during the day. It was shocking, and if they hadn’t been friends, she would have found his surprise, half-naked appearance creepy.

“Sorry,” Kate apologized for no reason, lowering her eyes and turning her shoulders so she could pass him in the narrow doorway. She didn’t exhale until she was in the bedroom and heard him turn the water on in the bathroom. As she changed, she realized why this was so weird; she’d never actually seen Sayid that close to naked before, despite all of their time spent living two tents away from one another and all the hiking trips they’d been on. She’d never thought about it before, but he must have always gone off privately to bathe. Maybe he wasn’t as cool with this arrangement as she’d assumed he would be or as he was pretending to be. Maybe he’d just said yes to be nice but was actually very uncomfortable about the whole thing. Maybe it violated some religious thing. Maybe he wasn't ready to do anything like this since Nadia. Maybe he'd gotten the wrong idea? No, Kate shook her head. He wasn't the type to assume that sort of thing, especially from her. Still... _Stupid stupid stupid_ she thought to herself and got into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin and feeling ridiculous.

He soon came back, and she was glad that he was too dark for a blush to show---if he was even blushing… Kate knew _she_ was. She watched him take his socks off. Kate knew that gotten a little soft during the past three years, but, well, Sayid had definitely not. Kate realized that she was staring at his chest and immediately shut her eyes.

“Is… do you have a side of the bed or anything?” she asked.

“No.” He (thankfully) turned out the lights and Kate could feel him getting into bed.

“Me neither.”

They were quiet. Nights were quiet in the Dharma village. It seemed like people didn’t really hang around outside after dark---it would be interesting to find out why. Kate missed the sound of the waves---one of the few purely _good_ memories she had of being stuck on the island. They’d always helped her to fall asleep.

“I’m glad to be sharing a house with you, Kate,” Sayid whispered out of nowhere. But then again, he’d always had a knack for reading people. He’d probably sensed her discomfort and wanted to reassure her. Kate was grateful.

“Me, too.”

“You came here to find Claire, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t know how he knew, but it didn’t matter. She sighed. “Doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen now, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry Kate.”

There was nothing else to say. “Good night, Sayid.”

“Good night.”

She rolled over onto her stomach, but she could tell that he slept on his back. Minutes passed, maybe even an hour. Kate had no idea how time was passing, but she could tell from his breathing that he hadn’t fallen asleep. She had a feeling that he could tell that she hadn’t either, but neither of them said anything. It was oddly comforting, laying there, listening to one another breathe.


	3. Chapter 3

“And don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.”

Sayid gritted his teeth. He had only been at his post at The Flame for two hours and already a dark part of him took comfort in the knowledge that Radzinsky would end up blowing his brains out in the hatch, as Desmond had told him a long time ago. Sadly, such foresight did not help the fact that the man was a pestilence in the here and now. It simply provided Sayid with the motivation he’d lacked the day before to find a way to get himself and his friends back to their own time period.

Sayid had held his tongue and done everything the man bossily ordered him to do. It was clear that Radzinsky looked upon Sayid as an underling rather than a partner, despite the fact that Sayid was better at the job. The only difficulty was familiarizing himself with older equipment than he was used to, but even that was not a challenge.

“I think a division of tasks would be the easiest way to handle this shared workspace,” Sayid offered. Anything to keep the man out of his hair.

“I’ll have to train you on everything first, but that's the plan. The sooner you can cover the daily grind, the sooner I can spend more time on my baby.”

Sayid raised an eyebrow, wondering what that might mean. He watched as Radzinsky removed a cloth covering from a table in the middle of the room. Underneath was a half-complete replica of what Sayid immediately recognized as the hatch.

“What is that?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

Radzinsky wrinkled his nose condescendingly at Sayid. “It’s classified. You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”

Sayid bit his lip, suppressing a laugh. “Has it been built yet?”

“No, no, we’re not even close. Digging at the site starts next week. It’ll take at least a couple of years to get everything properly tested, dug and built. And to get the equipment. Getting computers to this place is like pulling teeth. Those idiots in Michigan fund us, but they don’t _understand_.” Radzinsky shook his head in frustration at the absent parties and then returned to the moment. “Anyway, that’s why it was so important for me to get help here---you. I’ll be at the building site a lot of the time going forward.”

Sayid silently thanked God. “What is this?” he asked, pointing at one of the screens measuring gravitational and seismic shifts. A strange pattern had formed and was now bouncing across the screen like nothing Sayid had ever seen.

Radzinsky looked up from where he was pottering with his model. His eyes widened in such fear that Sayid didn’t need to wait for an answer to ascertain what it was.

“You don’t want to know,” Radzinsky replied. “They’ll tell you sometime, when you’re ready.”

“Are we safe from it?”Sayid remembered that they had had to pass through the pylons in order to reach The Flame, just as he, Kate, Locke and Rousseau had done so long ago.

“Yeah, for some reason it never comes near this place. Don’t know why. And the pylons around the barracks help to keep it out. That and the Hostiles, but you don’t need to worry about them. That’s Security’s job… speak of the devil.”

The door opened and Sawyer walked in. “Hey,” he greeted. Radzinsky gave him a rude half-wave without looking up. Sawyer rolled his eyes and walked purposefully up to Sayid, giving him a wink. He looked down at his clipboard, pretending to read it. “Sayid, right? How’s everything going today?”

“Just fine,” Sayid replied in clipped tones, but even after years apart, there was still enough understanding between him and Sawyer that he could convey his true feelings with a glance.

“I know,” Sawyer mouthed with a smirk, and then cleared his throat and said in his official voice, “I’m just doing my rounds, checking in. Also, I wondered if you wanted to come to dinner at my house tonight. Horace likes for new recruits to have a big buddy kind of thing, you know, to help people settle in. Horace, Pierre, and I each took a few, and I’ve got you and…” He looked down at the clipboard, smiling ironically. “Jack, Hugo, and Kate. You met them yesterday, right?”

“Yes, we ate dinner together. And Kate and I are sharing a house.” Sayid hoped that this would not be a problem, and tensed, waiting for Sawyer’s reaction, which was relatively (and thankfully) less intense than Sayid had expected.

“Really? Not with…” Sawyer collected himself. “Great. Stop by at seven or so. Casual clothes. A couple of my other friends'll be there, too, so you can get to know more people.”

Sayid could guess who these friends were. “I will be there. Thank you… Jim?”

“Yeah, it’s Jim. Alright, gotta head out. I’ll see you later. Bye, Four-Eyes!” he called out to Radzinsky as he left. Sayid went back to his station to run a report.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Radzinsky muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“That asshole doesn’t want to be your friend. He doesn’t give a shit about you or anyone else except the people in his little clique,” Radzinsky ranted bitterly. “He and Juliet act like homecoming king and queen of the whole Dharma Initiative, and they’ve got their two buddies, Miles and Jin. Always so exclusive and smug, all of them, giving you this look like they know some secret you don’t.”

Sayid wondered to himself if it was perhaps the island itself that made everyone who came there regress into a teenager, no matter the time period or circumstances.

Radzinsky was on a roll. He walked up to Sayid and began whispering furiously. “They’re fishy, too. They weren’t even recruited. Just showed up out of nowhere, I hear, with some story about how they were a research crew shipwrecked here. It doesn’t add up. But Horace trusts them for some reason. Apparently they helped him shore up the truce with the Hostiles. And my question is: how’d they do that unless they were already in with those bastards? And it turns out yesterday that Juliet’s some kind of _doctor_. All this time we’ve been short on medical staff, and she doesn’t say anything until now? The hell?”

Given that he didn’t know the story, Sayid didn’t know how to continue without incriminating himself or his friends, so he changed the subject. Even though he was sure Sawyer would tell him later that day, Sayid had been wondering what had happened to all of their other friends. He knew that almost everyone at Locke’s camp in the barracks had been killed, but he couldn’t understand where the rest of Jack’s camp had gone, and if others from the freighter had survived in addition to Jin. “Were there any other survivors of their research crew?”

“Yeah, one, a physicist. And that’s what I mean. They said they were looking for this 19th century shipwreck, so what the hell did they need a physicist for? Anyway, Pierre---he checked you in yesterday---sent him to headquarters in Michigan. Because god forbid they leave any _actual_ scientists on the island to help me out.” He stormed back to his Swan model. “Anyway, if tonight they start acting like the superior assholes they are, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I will keep it in mind.”

They worked quietly for awhile after that, each in their own corner of the house. It was odd, being here again, and it was a good thing that the tasks were relatively simple, because Sayid was having trouble keeping the memories at bay enough to concentrate fully. He still bore a scar from Mikhail's gunshot wound. Radzinsky had explained the computer system in the next room to him; _finally_, years after he’d stopped wondering, Sayid understood what it was that Locke had done that day to blow the station up.

“So… you said you’re sharing a house with Kate.” Radzinsky said randomly after lunch. “She’s the one with the hair, right?”

“Yes.” Something about Radzinsky’s tone sent protective and aggressive shackles up Sayid’s spine. But he kept his tone even as he explained, “There was a shortage of housing, so Phil asked her to choose an arrangement that would cause her the least amount of discomfort.”

“And she picked you, huh? _Nice._ You gonna tap that?” he asked, with a nasty glint in his eye. Sayid refrained from striking him in the face.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Radzinsky chuckled. “Right. Well, if you don’t, someone else will. You’ll notice pretty quickly that there’s a shortage of women on this island. They should be shipping _them_ in, not more Dharma-logo gear. All the good-looking ones are taken. Juliet’s shacked up with LaFleur…” Sayid jerked to attention at that. “Horace got Amy. Rosie’s playing Jerry and that asshole Miles. That leaves just the schoolteacher and this new Kate chick. Hey, if you’re not interested, do you think you could get me an introduction?”

This man had the least amount of self-awareness of anyone Sayid had ever met.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Sayid spent the rest of the afternoon working on an idea that the sight of Radzinsky huddled over his model had given him.

****

  
The Flame was quite a distance from the camp and there was only one van for him and Radzinsky, so Sayid had to wait until the man had satisfied his need to tinker before they could leave. By the time he returned home to change, it was almost seven. From the blue jumpsuit left on the bed, Sayid could tell that Kate had already come and gone. They hadn’t spoken much in the morning. Both had overslept, due to not sleeping at all during the night. They’d jumped out of bed and gotten ready in a groggy rush, bumping into one another in the bathroom and almost spitting toothpaste on one another’s heads. They’d barely had time for breakfast, much less for chatting, but thankfully the rush seemed to have driven away whatever awkwardness had overtaken her the night before.

As he hung her discarded jumpsuit next to his in the closet, he wondered how her day had gone. And if Juliet had told her what Radzinsky had told him. He’d been proud of how she’d handled Jack the day before, but over the years, he had almost forgotten all about her and Sawyer.

Sayid had to ask someone where LaFleur lived. A tired-looking “Workman” pointed him in the right direction. His knock was answered by someone yelling that the door was open. Sayid saw that he was the last to arrive. Sawyer, Juliet, and Miles were in the kitchen, stirring pots and pulling beer out of the refrigerator. Jack was sitting on the couch, beaming hopefully at Kate, whose eyes kept darting away from him to Juliet and Sawyer. Jin was looking misty-eyed in the corner with Hurley, who was undoubtedly giving him news about his daughter and his wife.

“Hey, man,” Miles greeted, handing him a beer. “How was your day with Radzinsky?”

“Much as I’m sure you already expect.”

“Sorry about that, Hoss,” Sawyer apologized. “It was one of the only jobs open, and I figured it was a good fit. But he won’t be there for much longer and you can have the place to yourself.” Sayid noticed a new level of confidence in Sawyer; what had formerly been overcompensating bluster had been replaced by something more genuine.

Juliet placed a hand on Sayid’s shoulder. “He’s really gross. It’s all I can do not to hit him when I catch him looking at me.”

“He did mention you, in what I am sure he considered flattering terms,” Sayid replied, and Juliet made a disgusted face.

“I don’t want to know.”

Sayid went to join Kate on the couch. Sawyer followed, handing her a drink, which she accepted with a nod. She smiled hello at Sayid. “I waited for you for awhile.”

“I’m sorry. I was delayed at work.”

Hurley turned towards them. “Well aren’t you Mr. and Mrs. Domestic?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sayid caught Jack looking pained and Sawyer looking confused. Instead of answering Hurley’s quip, he more seriously said, “So, I have been working out a plan. Radzinsky is working on a model of the Swan hatch. I was thinking today that if there is a way to keep it from being built properly, we can avert events enough to keep Desmond from ever having to push that button. And if that---”

Sawyer put his hands up. “Woah, woah there. You’re gettin’ ahead of yourself, Sayid. We don’t want to go messing around with anything like that. That’s one of the reasons I had you guys over here tonight. We’ve got to explain to you how this works.”

“How what works?” Kate asked.

“This whole time travel thing. Daniel was pretty clear on it before he left. We change _nothing_.”

“But---” Sayid tried to ask.

“No buts. That’s just how it is. We don’t try to keep our plane from crashing. We don’t try to change anything, and even if we tried, it wouldn’t work. Whatever happened, happened. Daniel says that there’s only one way things can go down, and that’s the way it’s always been.”

“So, how do we get out of here?” Kate asked. “How do we get back to our own time?”

“We don’t,” Juliet answered calmly.

Sayid and Kate exchanged a glance.

“You people don’t get it,” Sawyer exclaimed, upon seeing the look. “You should be glad you got sent back here. It beats everything that happened before. This place has always been weird, but after you left… it went _more_ crazy. We started traveling through time, no idea how or why. And all the time jumping started to make us sick.”

Sayid remembered something. “Sick? Sick how? Was there a nosebleed?”

Sawyer nodded. “How’d you know about that?”

“It happened to Desmond once, but he and Daniel found a way for him to recover.” Sayid had never quite understood what had happened.

“Well, I don’t know anything about Desmond, but Charlotte _died_, and we all would’ve died, too, if Locke hadn’t done what he did.”

“And what was that?” Kate asked.

“No idea. He went down some hole, saying that if he did, we would be saved. Don’t know how he knew. But right after he went down, there was another time flash and the ground closed up. Never saw him again. But he was right. Whatever he did down there stopped the time travel, and we were _now_, three years ago. No more nosebleeds, no more camping. Couldn’t have stopped in a better time, if you ask me.”

“What if we go down the hole again? What if we do whatever it is that he did?” Jack asked.

Juliet shook her head. “I doubt he had any control over where we ended up, or else we would have ended up in our own time period, not the Dharma initiative. Going down there isn’t likely to bring us home. Anyway, they’re building a station there right now. It’s called The Orchid. It’s classified. None of us would be allowed in there.”

Sayid was surprised. This didn’t sound like the Juliet he remembered. The resourceful woman he had once known would have been ready to find a way to sneak in. Sayid was sure that that woman was still in there; it seemed more that she didn’t _want_ to sneak in. That in itself was frightening.

“We’ve got to do _something_, though,” Kate protested.

Sawyer shrugged. “Who says? Jack here says y’all saw the island disappear when you left. Even if we did somehow find a way to get back to our time, did it ever occur to you that we’d still never be rescued? How can anyone rescue us from an island no one can see? And where you need to take a sub that will no longer exist and follow some crazy bearing in order to get away? And there’s no point in trying to get to the States. We don’t even exist right now. The way I figure, if I’m going to be stuck on this rock for the rest of my life, I’d rather do it when there’s a nice house and food and beer coming in. It beats living on mangoes on the beach.” Sawyer opened his beer and went back to the kitchen, having said his piece.

“It’s really not so bad here once you get used to it,” Miles chimed in. "It takes awhile, but they'll send anything you want on the sub. Records, books, clothes. Food's not bad either."

Sayid glanced at Kate, who had taken her head in her hands. It was going to be a long night.

****

It was late when they finally left the LaFleur residence. The walk back to their house wasn’t long, but the heavy damp air made the distance seem further. They walked in silence, burdened down by three years worth of shared stories and theories, until Kate blurted out, “The Dharma Initiative has a brainwashing room on the other island. Did you ever hear about that?”

“I did.”

“I think they must all have gotten put in it.” She shook her head, unbelieving.

Sayid tilted his head at her. “Do you think they put Jack and Hurley in it as well?” he joked. He knew what she meant. The complacency they had been surrounded with all evening was staggering and depressing. Sayid felt as though he and Kate were the only ones left with any drive.

“I don’t know. They’re different. They just seem tired, like they don’t care what happens to them anymore or like they think their purpose is to just sit around here. But the others… it’s like they’re actually _happy_.”

Sayid agreed. “Jin is a possible exception. I think he could be persuaded into action, if only there was a way to guarantee a reunion with his wife,” he mused.

“Maybe, but… Sawyer’s right. All this time travel stuff is so much more out there than anything we had to deal with the last time. How do we even start?”

Realizing that he needed to bolster the only partner he had left, Sayid reasoned, “Everything has a cause, and every cause can be discovered and used. It may take some time, but I am sure that if we simply explore every possible avenue, an explanation and opportunity will present itself.”

Sayid wanted to believe it more than he actually _did_. But his statement had the desired effect, because Kate reached for his hand and squeezed it. “That’s the Sayid I know.”

He squeezed back and said with mock seriousness, “In the meantime, I should let you know that my work partner finds you attractive and would like me to introduce you to him.”

“Uh, really?” Kate looked up at him wonderingly. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“Absolutely not. Let’s say that I don’t think you would be compatible.”

She grinned. “Thanks for the warning.”


End file.
